Chasing the northern lights

I can’t remember why I decided I needed to see the northern lights again. Maybe it was nostalgia. I remembered seeing them as a child, standing in the big yard facing Canada and watching them dance above the pasture. Sometimes I spent the night at my aunt and uncle’s in town, we’d stand in the middle of the highway and watch them. In North Dakota the sky is vast and traffic minimal.

Or maybe I just wanted a distraction from a life that become rote, a break from the relentless schedule of parenting small children.

Whatever the reason, I found a Facebook group called Upper Midwest Aurora Chasers and I joined. Suddenly every night was filled with possibility. I monitored the group’s posts, and I waited for the right conditions. Southern Wisconsin, where I live, is almost never a good place to see the aurora. Too far south. But you don’t have to drive far to get a good view.

One night after we got home from a dinner party, I checked Facebook and noticed that the alerts were piling up.

Go time, I told my husband.

I threw my sleeping bag and a foam mattress we use for fort building in the back of the van, grabbed my camera and a headlamp, and I was off, heading for the nearest patch of dark sky three hours north. I texted my husband and told him to find me a north-facing boat landing. He is a good husband, so he did.

I am not known for spontaneity. But I didn’t really have second thoughts about the trip until I pulled into the parking lot. It was pitch black. Tar black. The kind of dark that makes you feel like you have lost your eyesight. I was alone, but not really. There was one other car in the parking lot. I sat in the van, doors locked, and contemplated. What kind of person parks at a remote boat launch at midnight? Murderers, sure. Campers? No, no camping spots. Late night boaters? Unlikely. I couldn’t tell whether the car was occupied. So I stalled. But a person doesn’t drive three hours to not get out of the car. So I gathered my things and stepped out into the black.

I had my headlamp trained at the parked car, when I heard a man ask, “Can I help you?” Not friendly, but not unfriendly. Neutral.

“I’m just here to see the Northern Lights,” I said.

Good news! That’s exactly why Terry was there too.

The bad news? I didn’t see the northern lights. I had missed them, Terry told me. When I took a picture of the sky, I captured a faint glow — the vestiges of what had been a spectacular show.

Terry and I spent about an hour by the lake. He showed me how to set my camera to take pictures of the stars. He told me about all the other places he had been aurora chasing. All the amazing sights he had seen. He took my picture (top).

Around 1am, I headed home. And when my eyes grew heavy, I parked between two semis at a truck stop and bedded down in the back of the van. I woke up on my children’s play mattress in the back of a minivan in central Wisconsin, bought a gas station coffee, and drove home.

I didn’t see the aurora. But I did fend off the ennui of an utterly predictable existence. At least for a little while. And maybe that’s all I needed.